Here's Why Some Airports Wind Up With Code Names That Make No Sense

Some people brush off airplane codes as one of life's little
mysteries. Boston's airport code is BOS, which is simple enough,
but EWR for Newark is just "one of those things." Right?

Turns out there's a rhyme and reason for just about every airport
code out there. An article originally published in December
1994 in Air Line Pilots journal by Dave English explains
nearly every mysterious airport code you've ever come across.

In the early 20th century, there were only a handful of
"airports," which in reality were just any area big enough for a
plane to land or take off. But when other airports started
cropping up in the 1930s, the previous coding system had to be
reevaluated. The airports with two-letter weather station codes
received an X on the end (LA became LAX and Portland's PD became
PDX), and every subsequent airport was given three letters.

Those three letters were usually the first three letters of the
city name — Atlanta became ATL, Boston is BOS, etc. But in some
cases, the codes are a little more confusing:

1. An airport code is named after the airport
itself: Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris is CDG, John
F. Kennedy airport in New York is JFK.

2. The airport is named after the location:
Harrisburg International airport is actually located in
Middletown, Pennsylvania, and is known as MDT.

3. The airport is named after a historical
figure: Knoxville airport in Tennessee was built on land
donated by the Tyson Family in honor of their son killed in
WWI (TYS).

4. Locations beginning with an 'N': The
Navy saved all of the new 'N' codes for itself, thus Newark
becomes EWR, while the Navy training airport in Pensacola,
Florida is NPA.

5. Locations beginning with W or K are only for
radio stations east and west of the Mississippi, respectively. So
Wilmington, North Carolina becomes ILM and Key West, Florida is
EYW.

6. 'Q' is designated for international
telecommunications.

7. 'Z' is reserved for special uses: ZCX is the
computer address of FAA's air traffic control headquarters, for
example.

8. Canadians got all the 'Y' codes. YUL for
Montreal, YYZ for Toronto, and so on.

The system gets even more complex if you take into account all of
the new, smaller airports that were given codes with numbers or
four letter combinations. Not to mention international airports
and flights — for example, all flights entering the US have
airport codes with a 'K' in front of the original three-letter
code (Key West then gets to be called KEYW).

There isn't really a need for you to remember all of these facts
given that most tickets and airlines will display not only the
airport code, but the name and location of your destination as
well. But at least the next time you fly into Newark, you'll
remember why its code is EWR.